Friday Shorts: Transit

It began with dark and raining. These hallways are usually full of surveillance robots that roam the place to ensure security and to have everything in order. Tonight seems to be somehow different. It’s too quiet and the damping weather made it even more haunting.

The man kept running towards a tight corridor. The platforms around the area are huge and it’s hard to find a place that is hidden and away from sight. The surveillance cameras and robots are inactive. So its unsure why the man is trying to hide himself. It may seem a greater danger is keeping the man running to a place to hide. There is a loud clinging sound and it seems to be following the man.

The man looks like he is exhausted. He could barely keep up with his own pace. He is breathing heavily and panting all he could to gasp for air as much as he can. But he kept pushing on. He felt his life depends on it. And perhaps he is protecting something. The documents he carried with him. Looks like a stack of paper and an envelope of some sort. It must be important as he grabs it closely within his chest and tightly he gush. He heard the clinging sound again and it seems to be getting closer. Whatever it is, it seems to be on him very quickly.

He reaches to the end of the corridor and it seem like a dead end. The man doesn’t seem to be concern. But his face shows that he knows the end is near. He took out a device from his pocket. It seems to look like a device that has a few basic buttons. He clicked on one of the green ones that have numbers on it. It looks like a combination of numbers for a password. Then he clicked on the big red one. Suddenly a big sound shattered the silence. The wall in front of him moved and reveal a doorway. The passage in was darker than the dark outside. Without hesitation, he quickly ran into it and towards the staircase down the dark room.

He can no longer hear the raining sound from the outside. It’s quieter but the danger is still trailing him. He knows he wouldn’t be safe for too long. The room seems to be more spacious than it seems. It looks like an old subway. Dusty and dark the place is. He pulled a lever and some small light illuminates the place. The place revealed itself and it’s huge. It looks like a hanger for gigantic trains. It’s too big for just a normal train station. It looks old but it seems operational. The man approached one of the train pods that has no windows. The door opened like a space ship. It has a hole in it and the man enters to the small pod.

Everything is calm inside the pod. It’s much cleaner and brighter. The leather seems to be well kept and the machine is operational. The computer inside turned on.

“Require destination” the computer asked in the form of a polite female voice.

The man took out his devise from his pocket again. He connects a cable between the devise and the computer in front of him. Then he clicked on his device to input some instructions.

The engine started but not as loud as you would imagine from a normal train. This train is far more advanced and it seems like it runs on electric. The bottom of the train lifted and hovered in its position. Then the sides of the train started to glow in a strip of navy blue. It’s flickering just a bit. Perhaps it’s not as well maintain from the outside compared to the interior.

The man inside looks confident. He finally looks relax as everything that he hope for in an escape is falling into place. As long as he gets out from this place, he knows the worst will be over. To his relief, the train started to move.

Its fast. Really fast. The train moves faster as it gains momentum. It’s a technological marvel. The whole train network is a huge cluster of sub networks of trains. Each train is made up with a singular pod in various sizes but the shapes are similar. When all the pods connect with each other, it looks like a giant centipede. But the way it moves is like a flying dragon swirling in different directions to get to a better position in moving quicker.

Some pods disconnect itself from the train and it moves to reconnect itself to another train network. It seems like there are many train lines to help connect the whole network to reach its routes. The way it connects and disconnects is just marvelous and almost look like a musical dance. But from near and up close, these amazing trains are tons of solid steel and brilliant technological advancement that mankind has ever made.

The man in the pod is closing his eyes. He is resting. While he was trying to rest but his hands are still conscious. He is grabbing tightly to the documents with him. Suddenly, an unnatural squeal noise came within the pod. From the outside, the pod looks perfectly fine. It’s still attaching with the other pods in front and behind.

The man was alerted and he knew something is not right. Then, he felt something dripping from the top and it’s dripping onto his hand and the documents he held. It was blood red. He looked up and he screamed at what he saw. The light failed and then it was black.

End of prologue.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Author Notes: I wrote this out of fascination. So I thought I will share it on my blog as well. Some short stories of a fictional world where people travel in an ultra fast and hyper speed transportation known as the Transit. Please forgive any typos or grammar mistakes, as this is mostly done quickly and for fun. Here is the summary if you are still reading ..

Transit — this is the story of Malcolm Creed, a relatively young and accomplished theoretical scientist but semi-retired due to some unknown reasons. One of his fields of expertise is the evolution of transportation and the impact it has for mankind. He was invited by Evan Straus, the good looking billionaire and visionary who built The Transit, the world’s fastest and safest mode of transportation known to man. Malcolm is invited to be a consultant to an ongoing investigation on reports of missing people who travel within the Transit. So far, there has been no proof that the company is responsible, or if the incidents actually took place, but the authority is pressured to continue investigation and come out with a satisfactory outcome. While Malcolm investigates and uncovers a bigger plot behind the incidents, he became close with Amy Sands, the chief system engineer who is responsible for The Transit algorithms and global systems.